I have not seen this before. Looks like an interesting idea if they can meet their $500 price goal and keep the noise down! I'd buy one.

 

Now it seems that the latest fad of smaller telescopes has gone over to cameras. It seems to be contagious! I just ran across another thread on smaller and smaller optics - over in a rather large astro-forum. Hmm..... I wonder what will be next...

Dave

 

And speaking of tiny cameras, I just ran into this article after wandering about in Yahoo News (I know it will rot my mind):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...might-change-the-future-of-warfare/?tid=a_inl

Called an ARA Checkpoint or something, it's being touted as the smallest camera going, and is for military applications. And it was for military use that we got the now common-place cams with lux-ratings of .000000001-lux. These were initially designed for use on spy-satellites that could see the former Soviet's moving their missles around in the darkest, Moon-less nights. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were de-classified and were up for grabs.

So it was us astrophiles that saw their possibilities. But instead of having these pointing down on the ground - we pointed them up! And the rest is history. It was estimated these could increase the equivalent aperture of a telescope five-fold: A 12" SCT was now acting like a 60" telescope! Or so it was guess-timated at the time. I think you get the idea. From the CIA and into the drawtubes of our focusers.

And here we have this new camera being taken out for a stroll in youtube:



I'd like to get one and see what it does for imaging DSO's in various different gear I have kicking about. Why let the government have all the fun? But I'll bet the cost of these is already in outer-space because it is being marketed to the military - the buyers of a "uniform round-wound cylindrical polyethylene containment-device" sold to the army for $750. And what this actually is? A plastic-bucket!

Have fun, all -

Dave